Japan: Tokyo Tour {Deetour}

Back in April, I was so excited to be able to visit my friends Nantoy and Monica who are based in Tokyo. My friend Flisha, who lives in the Philippines, joined me so she could visit her sister Patricia who is studying in Japan.

I got to visit not just Tokyo but other prefectures as well like Mt Fuji & Hakone, Ashikaga, Kyoto, and Osaka, but I will blog about them separately. You can check out our detailed itinerary for our entire Japan trip with costing here.

After landing, I bought a ticket for the Keisei shuttle bus from inside the airport for 1000 yen and rode that to Tokyo proper. The ride took about 1 to 2 hours. This is cheaper than taking the train, which costs 3000 yen.

Anyway, here’s what we did in Tokyo!

Shibuya Crossing

On our first day, we visited the famous Shibuya Crossing. We first dropped by the famous Hachiko statue, and I was so surprised when someone plonked two adorable cats on the statue.

Then we crossed the Shibuya Crossing several times. It’s really cool to see everyone cross the middle of the road from all sides all once! It’s definitely not something that I’ve seen anywhere else.

We then had dinner at a nearby Ichiran Ramen. The queue was quite long and took around 20 to 30 minutes. When we got to the front, we had to punch our orders into a vending machine. The standard ramen costs 890 yen.

After ordering, we were ushered into booths that were separated by dividers, so you could focus on your food. Flisha and I had booths side by side, while Nantoy and Monica had to be seated away from us.

The ramen was really good and I can understand why a lot of people love it! But Nantoy said that honestly, he has tried better ramen and he would have brought me to try them if there wasn’t a lot of other Japanese dishes that I wanted to try.

After dinner we went shopping at Mega Don Quijote, Japan’s largest discount goods store which is open for 24 hours. The place had 7 floors and there was so much to see and buy there, from different flavoured KitKats to famous Japanese beauty products like Hada Labo lotion and Anessa sunscreen. We walked through every single floor and I ended up buying much of my presents here.

Tsukiji Fish Market

Japan is famous for its sushi and sashimi, and one of the most popular wholesale markets for this is Tsukiji Fish Market, which in recent years has also become a famous tourist destination.

We went to one of the many conveyor belt sushi places around the place, and the sushi there tasted way better than the sushi places in Singapore. That’s because they’re prepared right in front of you and you can even order what you want, like the fatty tuna sushi that Nantoy ordered and which I really loved.

Now just like your typical conveyor belt sushi place, each color of plate had a different price. What I found fascinating was that when they rang up our order, they didn’t even need to count them manually. They just scanned the whole stack of plates like they each had a QR code embedded in them.

I regretted eating way too much at the sushi place because there was a lot more food outside and I was too full to eat them all! I did try some buttered torched scallops, skewered meat, and ice cream, though.

Nezu Shrine

Thanks to Flisha who is obsessed with flowers, we got to visit the ongoing Bunkyo Azalea Festival at Nezu Shrine. The rest of the year, the Nezu Shrine’s highlight is just the red shrines, kind of like the famous Fushimi Inari in Kyoto but smaller and fewer. If you can’t go to Kyoto and just want pics of the shrines, then this is the place for you.

However in spring, Nezu Shrine explodes in a riot of colour.

Azaleas everywhere!

The walls of flowers looked so picturesque that I just had to strike this pose. Nantoy followed suit.

They also had some food for sale in kiosks in the area, so we had some yakisoba and yakitori.

Tokyo Station & Ginza

The Tokyo train station is also quite picturesque, and according to Nantoy, it was patterned after Amsterdam’s Centraal station.

The Tokyo station is one of the busiest stations and this is where you can find JR offices to book reserved seats for your JR Pass.

The Japan Rail Pass (also commonly called JR Pass) is a very cost effective rail pass for long distance train travel in Japan. It can be used by foreign tourists only, and offers unlimited use of JR trains for one, two or three weeks at a cost that residents of Japan can only dream of.

We had bought a 7-day pass for 350 sgd (~28,667 yen). For context, a roundtrip fare from Tokyo to Kyoto would cost 26,700 yen. So if you’re going to Kyoto and back, it would definitely be more worth it to buy the JR pass so you can use it to explore other places beyond Tokyo and even use it to take the express train to Narita Airport.

Ginza is a few bus stops away from Tokyo Station.

We checked out Bic Camera, a building with nine floors of gadgets. We ended up buying toys here, and thanks to someone’s purchases, I got to buy a Google Home mini for half the price (3000 yen).

On another day, I wandered into Mitsukoshi to go shopping. I went around to check out famous Japanese makeup brushes in person. I was underwhelmed with the famous Suqqu cheek brush which retails for like 17,000 yen. I was more impressed with the RMK cheek brush which is super soft but costs a quarter of that.

I also went into the massive foodcourt at the basement where there is so much food options, it might overwhelm you. So what I did was just join random long queues because they must be good, right?

One such queue ended up in this heavenly creamy dessert. Side note: all milk products in Japan are divine. I don’t know if it’s the milk itself or the way they process it, but even an ordinary milk pudding from a convenience store in Japan tastes so good!

I also really liked these press butter cookies which were so popular, they run out about 10 minutes after I bought my share.

I ended up having some okonomiyaki for dinner but I didn’t like it. This was the only dish I ate in Tokyo that I didn’t like. But I would try much more delicious okonomiyaki in Kyoto and Osaka later.

Harumi

My friends Nantoy and Monica live in the Harumi area so this was home to me during my short stay in Japan. This isn’t really a touristy spot, but it was nice to feel like a local.

They brought me to some of the neighbourhood restaurants and my favourite was the Ikinari steak which was aged for 20 days. Beef is also really good in Japan. Actually, everything is good in Japan, even the yakitori that I bought from the convenience store in their condo.

Monica and I also watched The Avengers: Infinity War in a cinema nearby. We intended to bike there using one of the free rental bikes from their place, but it was extremely windy and I wasn’t confident that I could handle a motorized bicyle so we decided to walk in the end.

Watching a movie in a Japanese cinema is a very interesting experience. First, you should definitely try the soy sauce butter popcorn. It might sound weird but it’s actually very tasty and is more delicious than just salted popcorn.

Second, the trailers are hilarious. Imagine watching a normal English trailer which suddenly gets interrupted with voiceovers of an overly enthusiastic Japanese announcer.

I really enjoyed my trip to Tokyo, overall. Thanks to my great hosts Nantoy and Monica, and to my travel buddy Flisha!

Japan Posts:
🇯🇵 Full Japan itinerary with costing
🇯🇵 Tokyo Tour
🇯🇵 Mt Fuji & Hakone Tour
🇯🇵 Great Wisteria Festival @ Ashikaga Flower Park
🇯🇵 Kyoto 2 Days Tour
🇯🇵 One Day in Osaka

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